


Stumbling into Battle

by wanderlight (Aoftheis)



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Death Eaters, First War with Voldemort, Gen, Marauders' Era, Suicide, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-19
Updated: 2018-12-19
Packaged: 2019-09-22 16:39:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,733
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17063267
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aoftheis/pseuds/wanderlight
Summary: A soldier can't stop fighting when he's in the field.The First War with Voldemort. Fragments and snapshots of what falls between the cracks and forgotten, outshone by the glory of war.





	Stumbling into Battle

**Author's Note:**

> I tend to romanticise battle, think of glory and élan, but studying wars in-depth in classes has opened my eyes, I hope. Huge thanks to [magnetic_pole](http://magnetic_pole.dreamwidth.org) for the insightful beta job; part three was written with you in mind, Maggie. Title stolen from Patrick Wolf.
> 
> This is the first fic I've posted in a long while -- I write constantly, but most of it just doesn't meet my standards and stays buried in my hard drive. So, I hope you enjoy.

**i.**

He is only moments too late.

The Dark Mark twists into shape over the house as Remus apparates into the garden: a token of failure, illuminating the night sky. He should wait for backup -- but never mind rationality. Remus stumbles through the half-open front door, past the overturned coffee table and shattered toys, taking the stairs three at a time.

Next to what remains of the crib, there is an infant-sized tangle of blankets, lying as if carelessly thrown. Blood pools around it, lethargically, seeping into the carpet. The hem of the mother's skirt is drenched red, and she crawls towards her baby -- but recoils when her hand touches the blood, curls into herself, looks away.

Remus has nightmares of torture and death, ephemeral things that burn like infection upon waking. This, though, is undeniably tangible. The woman keens, low in her throat, and Remus can't seem to get the litany out of his mind: _no, no, no..._

Moments later, Sirius and Lily arrive, silent as they melt into the room. One look at the window, into the back garden and curtains torn in haste, and Sirius is rushing down the stairs again.

"Go with him," Lily says, voice hoarse with sleep, "we don't know how many of them there are. I can handle this."

A crackle and a shout downstairs. Remus nods briefly.

But by the time he reaches the back yard, it's empty but for Sirius, struggling to his feet and holding his arm at an awkward angle.

"How many?" Remus asks, taking the arm. He runs his fingers over it, firm and professional, checking for injury. All of the Aurors have been trained in healing charms, unthreading malignant spells, fusing ripped skin. Lily is the one with a natural feel for it, though. Remus' touch is too hesitant; Sirius and James' are too brash.

"Three," Sirius says shortly. "Apparated just as I got here." He shakes his head, moonlight catching in his eyes, and pulls away from Remus' hands. "Don't. I deflected a hex just in time, it's fine. I'm fine. Where's Lily?"

Lily emerges from the side of the house, scrubbing the back of her hand against her eyes. It's just the three of them tonight, pulled from their beds on a night like any other. Them, and the chill in the wind, and that green haze hovering over the house that no one's looking at. James is on Harry duty. Peter didn't come when the emergency call went out.

"Let's go," Lily says as she reaches them.

"The woman," Remus says, "she was badly injured, I can Apparate her along if we need to --"

Lily pulls her nightshirt more closely around her and looks him straight in the eye. "Let's go, Remus."

For half a moment, Remus pauses. Then he steps right into her personal space, an unspoken _pay attention_ , and says, "She was alive. Badly hurt, but Lily, she was _alive_ when I left that room." It would be an accusation if his voice had any jagged edges, but it doesn't. It's calm, level, as always.

 _You never kill_ , the instructors had said, back when actual fieldwork was far-off and Auroring still meant desks in rows and practise lessons, _you never kill, unless it's a Death Eater or an associate. Some of these people have lost everything, and they're not thinking, they don't want to live. They're going to ask things of you, but you don't get to make that choice. Your orders are to bring them in. You don't kill._

Lily was the only one who raised contention. Connors told her that it would go on her permanent file if she didn't drop it, _right now, Evans_ , and she never spoke of it again.

"The Death Eaters tortured her husband and her child to death. Both of them, right in front of her." It's whispered into the air, snatched away by the wind, but there's the same steel strength behind those words as there is in the white-knuckled grip on her wand. "I... I didn't do it, Remus. She asked to borrow my wand, and --" her voice trips slightly over what she doesn't say out loud "-- she did it herself."

Wands. Thin sticks of willow, rosewood, oak; what can be built on a network of charms can also be spelled away. The Ministry used to keep the wands of convicts in a triple-guarded room down in some catacomb, in case of an acquittal or a parole, but these days they snap in half straightaway.

"That's --" _murder_ , but Remus can't say it out loud. That would give it form, make it real.

"No," says Sirius slowly. "That's mercy."

The silence stretches out, until it needs to snap, but the world doesn't give them what they want these days. Remus doesn't bother to worry about who will have to answer for this: the Ministry never investigates death further, just adds another tally to the count in the _Daily Prophet_. A war of numbers.

"I'm not sorry," says Lily. Her expression could almost be called resolute, if it wasn't so weary.

Not one of them says a thing, but after a few moments, they Apparate away, more or less at the same time.

 

**ii.**

There were once days where breakfast meant sunlight in the Great Hall, steaming trays of toast appearing at exactly seven o'clock, James and Sirius pelting each other with dinner rolls and Peter scribbling madly to finish the homework he'd forgotten about. Now, it's more along the lines of empty cupboards in a spare flat, a crooked lamp dangling above a Formica table, and half-finished cups of tea.

"This damn _war_." Doors slam and rattle. When Sirius is angry, there are always physical manifestations.

"It's not a war," Remus says, unearthing a quill from a pile of parchment to do the crossword. It's sandwiched in between the list of Auror deaths over the past month and an article about a recent spate of child killings. (The Order suspects that they're linked to one another, but no one can find a clear trail.) "You know what Dumbledore says -- neither side's officially declared anything."

"Fuck Dumbledore," Sirius replies from the stove, doing something vicious to the eggs with his wand. "People die, it's a war, as far as I'm concerned. What's that phrase -- a rose by other names, something like that."

Remus fills in seventeen down ("b-i-s-c-u-i-t") and sips at his tea, surveying the mess in front of him. The dinner table needs to have three months' worth of newspaper and debris cleared off of it, but he's not going to waste a lazy morning, who knows when they'll get another? "It's good to know that five years of Muggle Studies taught you nothing but how to misquote Shakespeare."

"Moony, you know very well I only took that class because Blacks _don't_ ," Sirius says, and abruptly stops. The stovetop crackles a little.

Sirius' family is one of the many topics that bring down the impenetrable silence. They don't speak of the Blacks now, not even in jest, not when Regulus -- well. Sirius swears that he's never seen Regulus among the masked figures, during some raid or another, but Remus has no doubts about what they would find if they rolled up the boy's sleeve (because Remus thinks of him as a boy, still). The stranglehold of a snake curling around his forearm.

"You're allowed to talk about them, you know." He keeps his voice mild, non-judgmental, an open-handed offering. He's always been good at that.

But Sirius just shakes his head, and reaches up into a cupboard for some plates.

These days, there is an overabundance of silence and not nearly enough of anything else. The clues ask for _a continent in the northern hemisphere_ , but Remus fills "s-i-l-e-n-c-e" into empty crossword squares and sets his quill down. As if writing the word will dissipate it without making it real through speech. 

"Tea?" he asks, after a while.

 

**iii.**

"Fuck," James says as he half-stumbles through the door to Remus' office, slamming it behind him. The shelves rattle a little, jostling the charms and books from their neat rows. A Sneakoscope rolls, precariously close the edge, then stops and stills.

James doesn't notice. He's rubbing at the knuckles of his right hand (red; sore, probably), his hair every which way, and there's the dark shadow of what could be a bruise forming along his jaw. Remus can read the signs.

"James," he says resignedly from behind his desk, which takes up a good three-quarters of the cramped office. "Why do you _always_." He doesn't continue, just waits. Soon enough, James will tell him.

"Not my fault," James insists. He's nearly trembling, with barely-contained energy and a scowl, a war's worth of resentment. "Jones pulled me aside, told me..."

At this, James drops his head, rubbing at the bridge of his nose, and stops. He won't look at Remus.

"I read it this morning." Remus throws a copy of the _Prophet_ down in front of him and doesn't bother to point to the title; it speaks for itself in bold type.

 _Ministry Passes Werewolf Restrictions Bill_.

"Yeah," James mutters, glancing up, "so Jones told me I had to tell _you_ that you had to -- resign, and then --"

"You punched him in the face."

"How'd you know?" James says indignantly, then sees Remus' raised eyebrow and gives up. " _Merlin_. Yeah, I did, because Moony, never mind legal, it's not _right_. This is -- you've been risking your _life_ for the Ministry, you won't very well turn on them, and this is what you get? And it's not like we've enough Aurors as it is! I just, I don't understand why they'd do this."

Remus does. It's been coming for a long while. The traces of Death Eaters are fleeting, about as easy to catch hold of as a vapour trail. Three months, the Ministry flailed around with excuses and _almosts,_ before it finally started punishing the things it could find and see -- conspicuously, directly in the public eye. Intimidation tactics.

Never mind that centaurs are peaceful creatures ( _Prohibition of Centaur Contact Act,_ June 1979), never mind that so many werewolves are turning sides only because of the legal noose the Ministry is tightening around their necks ( _Revised Bill of Werewolf Rights_ , August 1979). It's a State of Emergency, after all. It's all in the name of justice.

"Bastards," James says, but Remus just shakes his head and pushes away from his desk.

In the corner there's a cardboard box, flaps open, kept waiting for today. Remus opens a desk drawer at random and begins to empty it out.

 

 **iv.  
**   
"It's not caution," Sirius says flatly, running a hand through his hair; he needs to get it cut, or it'll start to impede his vision. An unnecessary risk: Remus will remind him, later. "It's _running away,_ is what."

"I've got a family, now," James says, head propped up on a hand and staring into the distance. The words sound empty, used and over-used until the patches are worn through, and James seems more intent on watching the street than he does on the conversation. "I've got Harry."

"Coward," mutters Sirius, staring into his drink. Judging from the clunking under the table, he's launched a boot-assault against James' shins. Sometimes it's a comfort, that most things in the world of Sirius-and-James haven't changed since second year.

" _Harry_ ," James says, firm but tired, a distant look in his eyes (thinking of Harry in Lily's lap, curled up in front of the fireplace, perhaps). His tone is low, voice a little hoarse from yelling orders yesterday, but it's all right. The hum and clatter of the pub around them is muted tonight.

" _Coward_."

"Does it seem to you like they've had this conversation, oh, _six times_?" Peter mumbles, glum, tapping his fingers on the wood grain tabletop in some unidentifiable nervous pattern. There are new lines on his face and bags under his eyes. They see Peter rarely, these days, and when they do he's always seemed to develop another nervous tic to add to his collection.

Remus sighs. "Yes," he says, not without amusement, "The 'oh, so your loyalties lie elsewhere' bit comes up next."

But then there's a break in the pattern, in the conversation that Sirius and James have fenced and parried over for months, battling through its various incarnations.

"It's supposed to be _us_ , Prongs," Sirius says lowly, "the four of us against the world." Sirius does that, sometimes, leaving out one person when he calculates mentally, and Remus has never had the nerve to ask who it is: Lily? Peter? (Him?) "And how's it supposed to be like that if you're holed up someplace we don't even _know_?"

James opens his mouth to give another rote answer, but Remus beats him to it. "And how's it going to be like that if James is _dead_ , Sirius?" It's out before he can filter it through his usual tact, and it's a measure of how weary he is (how weary they all are) that he doesn't even regret saying it.

"You _know_ ," Peter says. "About how You-Know-Who wants him gone, him and Lily especially." He's still on edge, tapping and twitching, and he casts a glance over his shoulder, out the window, to the face of his watch.

"Yeah," Sirius says finally, and Remus can physically see how the fight goes out of him as he sags. "I know." Instead of speaking he kicks James under the table, hard but without anger, and drains his drink. Later, they'll probably bruise each other up a little in the back alley, fists and hurled insults, then get so drunk they can't see straight and be over it by the morning.

Suddenly, the pub erupts in cheers around them.

"Right," Peter says awkwardly, after a moment of tense, puzzled silence. "It's New Year, isn't it. Happy New Year."

And then, outside in the night, something explodes, and the electric heat of curses and hexes crackle in the air. The civilians duck for cover, overturning tables and smashing glass in their haste, but the four of them have their wands at the ready before the dust clears.

 

**v.**

Remus finds Sirius sitting on the slatted floor of the flat's fire escape, arms resting on the rail and bare feet over the edge, dangling over air and space and nothing. The breeze has a bit of a bite. It'll be winter, soon, the time when nature curls up into itself and sleeps for months in peace. He wishes he could do the same.

He doesn't need to check the calendar to figure out the date: Regulus is being lowered into the ground of the ancient Black burial plot, likely right now. Was Sirius not invited, or did he choose not to go? Remus isn't sure, and he doesn't ask. He never asks.

What Sirius needs right now is James, he knows, but they haven't been able to see James in weeks. The Fidelius is a mixed blessing. In any case, Remus will have to do as a substitute. Remus slips down next to Sirius, hip to hip, shoulder to shoulder, like James would do.

It's dawn. They sit in silence as purple splays its fingers across the jagged city skyline, then orange, then a hint of blue.

"I can't think of anything to say," Remus admits finally; maybe ineloquence means more than the proper words do, sometimes. "I'm sorry."

A little while later (thirty-two seconds; Remus counts them), Sirius speaks. The words come out slowly, like Sirius is _thinking_ for once before he lets them past his lips, and they carry the sort of unconscious sureness that gives unbelievers ideals to believe in.

"Sometimes I think about this," he says, and stops. "About, the... factions, and the agendas, what the hell does it matter who you're fighting for when the people you love keep -- keep _dying_ , and you can't do a damn thing to stop it?" Sirius kicks at a corner beam, and a clang of iron violence rings out. "And then, finally... you just don't care, and can't we just _stop_?"

Remus doesn't say anything at all, because neither of them has ever felt the need to blunt the jagged edges of truth with empty words. Besides, Sirius already knows the answer to his question.

A soldier can't stop fighting when he's in the field.

**Author's Note:**

> So, uh, I'm about seven years late in uploading all of my fic to the AO3. Better late than never? I miss fandom — come say hi @aoftheis on [twitter](http://twitter.com/aoftheis/) or [tumblr](http://aoftheis.tumblr.com).


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